The night air at the Temple of the Dragon grew colder.
Mai sat beneath the blooming cherry tree, her fingers still wrapped around the ancient scroll Sōren had handed her. Her red eyes scanned the parchment, absorbing symbols, names, and invocations lost to time. Words written in blood and sealed in silence. Above her, the stars shimmered without warmth.
She exhaled slowly.
"I'm not ready," she whispered.
But the scroll began to glow.
The Temple responded.
The stone beneath her shifted. Symbols across the floor lit up, red, violet, yellow, and blue—a swirling compass converging to one center point.
Where she sat.
Mai stood.
The light rose around her in a slow spiral, tracing her scars, reading her past. The aura of each flower flickered in sequence.
Red.Her mother's scream.Yellow.Tiffany's defiance.Blue.The face of Gigel.Violet.Duncan's soft grief.
Mai fell to her knees, clutching her head. Visions crashed over her like waves.
Her mother's eyes as she died. Tiffany's hand on hers in the dark. Duncan's whisper: "We're all carrying ghosts."
And at the center of it all—herself, as a child.
Running barefoot through the orchard, before blood and flame.
Before power.
"I remember," she whispered. "I remember who I was."
The symbols pulsed.
Then—silence.
The floor opened.
From beneath the stone, a flower rose.
It was not red. It was not orange. It was not even pink.
It was...light.
A luminous shape of shifting hue—constantly changing, never settling. It had no definite color. It breathed with the pulse of life itself.
The Dragon Rose.
Mai reached forward. Her hand trembled.
"I'm scared," she said.
And then, from within her, another voice answered.
"You've always been scared. But you kept going."
Her own voice.
Older.
She touched the flower.
Pain surged through her chest. Not the wild, angry flare of the Ixora—but something deeper. Acalm agony. The pain of release.
Her hair flared pink for a moment, then deepened into rose gold.
Her body lifted off the floor.
Light encased her.
She screamed.
Outside the temple, Tiffany and Duncan approached slowly.
"She's in there?" Duncan asked, limping.
Tiffany nodded. "I feel it. Something... massive."
Suddenly, the temple glowed.
A column of energy exploded into the sky.
A figure rose at its center.
Mai.
Her hair glowed with threads of rose and gold. Her body is slightly taller. Her muscles were defined, not brutish, but graceful. Her outfit had changed—combat robes with open shoulders, revealing a soft pink aura pulsing beneath her skin. Her eyes—**crimson with specks of white, **radiated silence.
She landed softly before them.
Tiffany took a step forward, breath caught. "Mai?"
Mai smiled gently.
"I'm here."
Duncan's eyes widened. "You're... different."
Mai turned her gaze to the sky.
"I am."
Then her voice lowered.
"He's coming."
Far to the west, a new light blazed.
Not warm. Not alive.
Blue.
From the smoking mountains beyond the sea, Gigel stood upon the final fortress of Aqua, arms stretched.
His body had changed. Taller. Bulkier. His aura crackled with storm-light. His face twisted with divine rage.
"Now," he whispered.
"No more carriers. No more lies."
He turned to his army—his final soldiers. The remnants of Aqua, twisted with synthetic marigold enhancements.
He raised his sword.
"The world ends at dawn."
To be continued...